


The Ibex of Brooklyn

by Liara_90



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Biblical References, Case Fic, Drugs, F/M, Generally Bad Human Beings, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Third Person, Prostitution, Religious Discussion, Serious, Undercover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-25 15:55:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12039246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: When a cultist church is suspected of being a front for organized crime, it's up to Brooklyn's finest to infiltrate it and take it down.They should have known this wasn't going to be an easy case.





	1. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

**Author's Note:**

> +100 Internet points if you somehow induce the reasoning in the title.

“ _They met in secret, in the dark and quiet hours when even_ _Gotham_ _slept_.” 

“It’s two-thirty in the afternoon, Jake,” stated Terry, having been present for all of thirty seconds and already growing exasperated. “How does that _possibly_ count as either dark _or_ quiet hours?” 

“Well I just woke up thirty minutes ago so for _dramatic effect I’m still right_.” 

“You woke up thirty minutes ago?” asked Amy, sounding equal parts impressed and horrified. “How?” 

“Hard to fall asleep when you’re sharing a bed with two beautiful partners.” 

“Were these partners named Ben and Jerry, by any chance?” asked Gina, not glancing up from her phone. She made an explode-y gesture with her free hand. 

“ _Mm_ ,” Jake winced as his joke was crushed so quickly. “I’ll have you know they were Häagen-Dazs and Netflix, as a matter-of-fact.” There were some indistinct chuckles from the audience. “What about you, Rosa? You look like you had a _ménage à trois_ with Mr. Vodka and the Missus Trip Sec?” 

“Detective Peralta, color me shocked at your knowledge of the French language,” stated Holt, striding into the room like he owned the place. (Which, seeing as this _was_ his basement, was entirely appropriate.) 

“That wasn’t Spanish?” Jake asked, in that tone of voice that made it impossible to tell if he was joking or not. Amy and Rosa both groaned, though Rosa’s might have been a coincidence, judging by the hangover she was conspicuously wrestling with. 

“Very drôle, Peralta, but I’m afraid we have no time for your attempts at polyglottal humor.” 

“Yeah,” Terry agreed, leaning forward on the ottoman he had claimed as a stool. “For starters, why are we meeting in the Captain’s basement, why on a Saturday, and who’s _this_ guy?” 

All eyes swiveled to a scrawny twenty-something year-old with bad hair and worse acne. “Oh. Hi everyone. I’m Glenn,” said Glenn, with a weak wave. “I’m a friend of Jake’s.” 

“ _Eeeeh_ you’re more of a _cooperating witness_ than a _friend_ ,” Jake clarified. “Busted him growing weed in a park. I really thought the soil was too contaminated for anything to live, but Glenn here showed me wrong.” 

“Huh.” 

“Mr. Matsveychyk is not the reason I had you all gather… surreptitiously… at my home,” began the Captain. “But there are some cases where secrecy must be at a premium. I apologize for disrupting any weekend plans you may have made.” 

“It’s okay, sir, I was just reorganizing my bookshelves from the Dewey Decimal System to Library of Congress numbering!” Amy replied, with her usual over-enthusiasm. 

She missed the mark, also as usual. “You were using the _Dewey Decimal System_ for your personal library? Where do you live, a _kindergarten in_ _Arkansas_?” 

Amy flinched, giving Jake an excuse to lean in, conspiratorially. “It’s okay,” he stage-whispered, “I don’t even _have_ books.” 

“Enough.” Holt brought the room to silence at once. He picked up a small remote and _clicked_ it, causing a discreetly-hidden overhead projection to _whirr_ to life. “I called you here because Peralta’s CI just gave us our first lead in the Adamsson case.” 

Amy and Terry both blinked in baffled non-comprehension. And Rosa even sat upright. 

“What Adamsson case?” asked Amy, immediately perturbed to discover a major investigation she hadn’t heard of. 

The projector finally finished powering-on, the blue screen it’d been flashing replaced with a mug shot. A large, middle-aged man was suddenly plastered across Holt’s war, along with a decade-old booking form from a jail in Atlantic City, New Jersey. 

“Abraham Adamsson, born December 25, 1959, on a small farm in rural Indiana.” Holt paused. “Excuse me, that should be pronounced Rural-comma-Indiana. It’s an unincorporated community in Randolph County, near the Ohio border. I’ve never been.” 

“Wait, I recognize him,” said Amy, leaning forward in her chair. Unlike the rest of them, she was dressed in her usual gray pantsuit, having overlooked the fact that this was ostensibly a social gathering. “He runs that nutjob church by Wallabout, right?” 

“While I would advise you to avoid referring to it as a quote _nutjob church_ unquote in public, you are correct. Slide two.” 

Through some miracle, Holt managed to avoid giving his usual kiss of death to the Macbook before him. The projector flashed to a street-level view of a small building on a grimy street, ringed with a ten-foot high fence that was itself topped with barbed wire. A hand-painted sign on the front proclaimed CHURCH OF THE PATRIARCH. 

“Adamsson is the founder of the Church of the Patriarch, which depending on your definition is either an extremist interpretation of Calvinist doctrine or _a cult_.” The way Holt emphasised that last part made it clear which side of the divide he was coming down on. “He’s a well-known _provocateur_ and his willingness to attack any social reform that occurred after the Florentine Renaissance has made him something of an _enfant terrible_ to the extreme right, if you’ll pardon my… Spanish.” There was a long pause. “That was actually French. I was making a joke, following-up on Detective Peralta’s quip several minutes ago.” 

“We understood it, sir,” agreed Amy. 

“ _Hm_. On the subject of Mr. Adamsson, while I’ve long found his views morally unconscionable they are nevertheless protected by the First Amendment. ‘Whites are the master race, women must submit to men, gays are an abomination’. The usual drivel. We’ve never been able to find much dirt on the man. _Until now_.” 

Jake half-rose out of his seat at the cue, but it was Rosa who got the next word. “Why were you looking?” 

The Captain actually blinked. “Excuse me, Detective Diaz?” 

Rosa sat fully upright, pulling the sunglasses from her face. Her eyes were, actually, barely bloodshot. “Why were you digging for dirt? Yeah he’s a fucking asshole, but that’s not exactly _rare_ in New York.” 

“A fair question. Allow me to backtrack. Abraham Adamsson is not exactly the sort of individual one would expect to find _in_ a church, much less founding and running one. He joined the Navy in 1978, traveled the world, and was dishonorably discharged after assaulting a sex worker in Yokosuka, Japan in 1983. He spent the next twenty years in and out of jails across North America. And unlike most criminals, Mr. Adamsson did not slow down with age. Over the years he’s been arrested for everything from mail fraud to soliciting to arson. He’s spent close to a decade in behind bars, but he’s always been lucky with judges and parole boards.” 

Some sort of quietness fell over the basement. It was a little sobering, knowing there were some perps they’d have to catch again and again and again. That jail did little to reform a man’s character. That there were some people who really just _preferred_ a life of crime to making an honest buck. Abraham Adamsson, judging by his rap sheet, was clearly one of those men. 

“Some time in the early-to-mid 2000s, Adamsson claims he found God. Or perhaps God found him. He founded a charity to help convert ex-cons to Evangelicalism, was quickly hit with several fraud charges, vanished for the better part of two years, resurfaced in Corpus Christi, Texas, and won the fraud case on a technicality. He used the ensuing media attention to become a prolific writer, for both print publications and the World Wide Web. More soliciting allegations caused him to fall out of polite society in the Bible Belt. Adamsson then relocated to Brooklyn, bought a hardware shop that had been shuttered in the recession, and converted it into the consecrated wellspring of misogyny and homophobia you all should be familiar with.” 

The screen flashed to another headshot. This one clearly wasn’t a booking photo, however, but a personal memento that had been blown up. Amy could tell from the image quality that it wasn’t from a digital camera - if anything, it looked like the kind of photo you got from those disposable ones they’d sold everywhere before smartphones became ubiquitous. 

The woman was in her early twenties, black, her hair elaborately braided and a cautious smile on her face. Even after the image had been cleaned up the woman’s visage remained grainy, as if it’d been “zoomed and enhanced” one too many times. There was some colorful graffiti on the bits of the visible behind her head, and Amy was also pretty sure it wasn’t New York. 

“Do any of you know who this lady is?” asked Holt, sweeping the room with his eyes. Jake alone already knew the answer, and tucked his chin into his chest to avoid blurting anything out. 

“She _does_ look somewhat familiar,” mused Boyle, stroking his jaw as he did. “Has she been at the precinct recently?” 

“In a manner of speaking.” Another slide, this one showing the same face on a Missing Persons poster, bearing the name of Roselord Beaubruna. Amy wanted to kick herself. She must have walked past that poster a thousand times entering and leaving the precinct. 

“Miss Beaubruna is, we believe, a twenty-four year old Haitian refugee who was last spotted by a security camera in Penn Station, a little over four months ago. According to our records Beaubruna was detained on several occasions on suspicion of prostitution, but never formally charged. After she vanished, her relatives in Quebec filed a missing persons report, but she has no known associations and no last address. Beaubruna became… a _statistic_.” The crispness with which he spoke that last word sent pangs of guilt down Santiago’s spine. 

“NYPD officially has no leads on her whereabouts. Not exactly like anybody did a lot of digging,” Jake continued, clearly sharing Amy’s sense of guilt. “That is, until our friend Glenn visited Adamsson’s _definitely not a scam_ congregation.” 

“She was there,” Glenn stated, definitively. “She was speaking with another black woman, too. Sounded like she was speaking French, or something, or I wouldn’t have noticed.” 

“What else did you notice?” prodded Jake, clearly already knowing the answer. 

“She, uh… she…” Glenn rubbed the back of his neck… “didn’t look like she was wearing usual church clothes. I mean I’m agnostic, what do I know, but…” 

“Thigh highs and a miniskirt are weird for Sunday, yeah,” Jake finished. 

Holt let that sink in for several seconds. 

The mood was definitely _damp toweled_ , as Jake would have put it. Adamsson wasn’t their usual opportunistic criminal, whom catching was almost like a game, as much as cops would be loathe to admit that aloud. This was someone whom Holt believed, deep down, was a _bad human being_ , and that sentiment pervaded the room. 

“So what, this guy’s the next Scientology?” asked Rosa, folding her arms across her chest. 

The Captain tilted his head. “I don’t think that Mr. Adamsson has L. Ron Hubbard’s charisma or organizational capability. We are not dealing with a criminal mastermind or a charismatic force of nature. But I have little doubt that this Church is an ersatz citadel for whatever petty crimes Mr. Adamsson chooses to indulge in next.” 

“And _that’s_ where Glenn comes in,” Jake announced, leaping to his feet before the silence could grow too deep. 

“Hi again.” 

“Glenn here’s a pretty good kid, just a bit ahead of the curve on decriminalization. His _brother_ , on the other hand...” 

Jake pointed at Holt, who spent a good ten seconds fiddling with the remote before the screen flashed. Angry, bald, bruised, and covered in tattoos everyone recognized as Neo-Nazi. “Victor. Not-so-nice a guy. Used to ride with a bike gang upstate before he had a falling out with them. Shortly thereafter, he found himself _gainfully employed_ as one of Adamsson’s ‘ _ushers_ ’.” Unlike Holt, Jake had the good sense to use air-quotes instead of saying ‘ _quote-unquote_ ’. 

“Oh.” Amy was rapidly filling in the blanks. 

“ _Yuuuup_. 87th followed him for a week but didn’t find anything conspicuously illegal, because of course that would have been too easy. But what he can hide from those clowns, he can’t keep from his baby brother.” 

“I’m actually two years older than him,” Glenn clarified, to a spectrum of disbelieving faces. 

“Sure you are. Point is, Vic tells Glenn that being an _usher_ to Adamsson comes with a whole host of benefits aside from eternal salvation. Drugs, whores, secret compounds up north, _you name it_ , _Abe’s got it_.” 

“Drugs” 

“Whores?” 

“Secret compounds?” 

“Hearsay is inadmissible as evidence?” 

Jake flashed his palms to stem the flood of questions. “According to Victor... according to Glenn… old A-A here has been using the church as convenient marketplace to exchange drugs, cash and women. Nothing in the church itself, _praise the Lord_ -” Jake went full Alabama in that last bit “-that’s just to give Abe a toehold in New York.” 

“A toehold for what?” asked Amy, genuine concern veiling her face, despite Jake’s jocular performance. 

Jake yielded the floor back to Holt, with a flourishy bow. The next slide was your police-procedural-mandated flowchart: dozens of mugshots and surveillance photos strung together by thin, color-coded lines, all roads leading to Adamsson. 

“Our leading theory is that Adamsson is using the church as a recruiting grounds,” Holt began. “He appears to be targeting primarily low-income and homeless women suffering from addiction to illegal drugs. Based on the hearsay from Victor Matsveychyk, we’ve inferred that Adamsson is luring the women to his church, offering them a steady stream of sermons and hard drugs, and then selling their services to his congregation. He’s no better than a lowly _pimp_ , he just dresses it up better.” 

“Like I said, you’re never going to touch Adamsson,” said Glenn, speaking up unexpectedly. His voice sounded like he’d barely hit puberty. “Vic says Mr. Adamsson doesn’t handle anything himself. Always uses middlemen. He likes to get drug dealers into his, uh, congregation. Buys product from them, I mean.” He shrugged. “I’ve been there a few times, and it’s _weird_ , but not, like, a crack den.” 

Rosa let out a _long_ sigh. More of a _hiss_. “Fuck.” 

“It’s a rather elegant criminal ecosystem,” Holt said, by way of agreement. “Adamsson himself is fairly well-insulated. Given that most of his professed congregants are former or active criminals, he could claim ignorance with some plausible deniability. His Church’s mission is, after all, to _shepard those who have strayed from the Lord_.” 

“So, Captain,” Amy asked, trying to recapture some of her earlier chippiness. “What’s the plan?” 

Holt glanced at Jake. Jake’s unusually subdued ‘ _back at you_ ’ nod was Holt’s cue to continue. “Detective Peralta and I discussed this earlier, and we are in agreement that there are two basic approaches we can take. Approach A would involve a female undercover officer posing as the kind of vulnerable woman that we believe Adamsson preys upon. Approach B would be to have an male officer pose as a petty drug dealer or something similar, someone whom Adamsson or his subordinates would source their drugs from. There are strengths and weaknesses to each approach.” 

“So we’re doing _both_ ,” interjected Jake, leaping to the conclusion. “I will pose as _Brett Chandler_ , a washed-up drug trafficker who fell out with his crew and is now looking for a new purpose in life.” His voice was the same voice he always used when announcing his undercover personas. 

“We haven’t settled on that yet,” appended Holt. 

“And coming with me will be the beautiful _Miranda López_ , a sassy Latina hooker with a crack habit who’s looking for redemption from the life of sin she’s lived.” 

“Also unsettled.” 

“Glenn’s dropped by the church enough times that he can get us in the front door without raising too many eyebrows. Together, Miranda and me will be a perfectly-tempting target of opportunity that Adamsson won’t be able to resist.” 

Even for a crowd that was used to some pretty strange assignments, the expressions around the room were… _disconcerted_. 

“Respectfully, Captain, isn’t this something Major Crimes or Vice should handle? Or even the DEA?” asked Amy. 

“Yes it is, Detective. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Adamsson is politically radioactive, and nobody wants to touch him. You may remember that in 2010 the Secret Service sent some agents to listen to a few of Adamsson’s sermons after he reportedly made death threats against the President. Adamsson caught them and made an embarrassing spectacle of it, while also firing up the fringe right with allegations that the government was trying to shut down his church. The Bureau has expressed interest, but their New York field office is overtaxed as it is. They can’t spare the personnel for what could be a drawn-out, deep cover assignment.” 

“But luckily for us, year-over-year monthly crime is down _nine and a half percent_ in our precinct,” said Jake with a grin wider than the numbers strictly merited. 

“I’m approving two officers to go on what could be a long-term undercover assignment to infiltrate the Church of the Patriarchy. If we’re-” every hand (save Gina’s) was already in the air. Even Rosa - usually the last perform to volunteer for anything - had been only a half-second behind Amy. 

“I sincerely appreciate your enthusiasm,” stated Holt, with a pause in his speech that made clear he meant it. “However, I would like to ask Detectives Peralta and Diaz to spearhead this operation, if they are willing to.” Jake certainly didn’t miss the way Amy’s eyes dropped a little at that. “This is not a reflection on your capabilities as officers. But Detectives Diaz and Peralta have the most experience undercover, and that skill is at a premium here.” 

“Also, I can look like a coked-up hooker a lot quicker than Amy can,” Rosa noted. Amy wasn’t sure if that was a backhanded compliment or just an honest assessment. With Rosa, it was usually pretty hard to tell. 

Holt cleared his throat. “Detective Peralta, I realize I simply assumed that you would accept this assignment. My apologies if-” 

“Nah, you guess good,” Jake said with a dismissive wave. 

“And Detective Diaz, I regret putting you on the spot, if you’d rather discuss this-” 

“-chance to arrest a sexist, homophobic asshole trafficking drugs and women? No, sir, I don’t need to discuss anything.” 

Holt smiled at that. “No, Detective Diaz, that does not surprise me in the slightest.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because you know what every good fic needs? _Explanatory essays!_
> 
>  
> 
> So this (accidentally) became my attempt at writing a more 'serious' crime  
> fic. I'm not sure if _B99_ fandom is particularly interested in that  
>  tone, so I figure I'll post the first few chapters I've already written -  
> as soon as I edit/proofread them - and then see where to go from there. (I  
> hate the whole 'give me feedback or I won't continue writing' mindset, but  
> I honestly struggle to write anything long to begin with, so this is not  
> playing to my strengths).
> 
>  
> 
> A few more notes! The tone of this is going to be fairly serious, if you  
> haven't already guessed. Not dark for the sake of being gritty, but, well,  
> not _fun_ crime. I swear to God this began as a comedy, but fuck me  
>  I guess. On a related note - comedy: something I can't _really_  
>  write. I've tried to mimic _B99_ 's speaking style as much as  
> possible, but bloody hell is it hard, so you'll have to forgive me for now.
> 
>  
> 
> And while this fic is tagged as 'Rosa/Jake', I wouldn't really call it a  
> romance fic. Please keep that in mind.
> 
>  
> 
> Comment, feedback, criticism, and reviews of all sorts are my fuel. Just a  
> two-word comment saying you liked something can brighten my whole day.  
> Dialogue, dynamics, factual details, action, plot… anything you want to  
> talk about, I'd love to hear!


	2. Masks and Legends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake and Rosa prepare to immerse themselves in their undercover personas. And Rosa _definitely_ drew the short straw.

99TH PRECINCT

There are a lot of things about going undercover that made Jake Peralta nervous. Physical danger, emotional trauma, social separation, losing his sense of identity. Those were all very real, and bubbling just beneath his conscious mind. But there was also the fun part.

There was also… _the_ _legend_.

The Nine-Nine had a tendency to throw the word ‘ _undercover_ ’ around a lot, usually just when they were doing an outfit swap for a quick bit of reconnaissance. Nothing that needed to withstand more scrutiny than a cursory glance. But Jake’s secondment to the FBI had familiarized him with the more ‘in depth’ approach that would be necessary for this assignment. Which meant he had thirty years of fictional biography to memorize, complete with dozens of “references” that could be called upon (well, _emailed_ ) to verify various biographical details. Accent coaches, regionally-sourced clothing, fake Social Security cards. The “legend”, as the boys from Langley would say.

It had been a fairly difficult process to come up with covers that would be believable, enticing, and difficult to challenge. The Church seemed to accept new members of the congregation on an informal referral system, for which Glenn was going to be their saving grace.

Jake’s cover was that of Jacob Chandler, a thirty-something year old from the part of Washington State that didn’t get featured in the tourist pamphlets. Both Jake and Rosa’s backgrounds were ‘birthed’ in the Pacific Northwest, because it was one of the few parts of the country that Adamsson had no meaningful connections. The hope was that it would make it that much harder for the Church to find any holes in their covers.

His background was plausible, and thus, unspectacular, at least by Jake’s Hollywood-esque standards. He was now a high-school dropout who’d worked a variety of extremely-difficult-to-check jobs over the years, many of questionable legality, while acting as a buyer and all-around logistics guru for Canadian biker gangs selling B.C. bud down south. ( _Canadian biker gangs? Like anyone is going to believe that._ ) If pressed, he’d say he and Glenn both met on a (now defunct) cannabis discussion forum, with Glenn providing some ‘consulting services’ for cultivating the product. The NYPD had even been able to arrange a set of officially-fake IDs from the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Easy enough.

The rest of the cover was a bit trickier. The idea was that Jake had gotten into a payment dispute with one of said Canadian biker gangs, pissed off the wrong people, and decided to cash in his chits and go east, young man. He still had a small stash of drugs (courtesy of the NYPD evidence lockers), a little over thirty grand in cash (courtesy of the American taxpayer) and some ‘friends’ out West who he could get product from ( _if_ Adamsson pushed). But “Chandler” didn’t _really_ want to get back in the drugs business. Nope, he was actually trying to find a new purpose for his life, which was why Glenn was introducing him to the Church. So that he could find redemption and salvation and all that good stuff.

He was - in short - the perfect kind of clay for a drug-dealing cultist to mould.

* * *

SHAW’S BAR

“...And you know, a lot of parts of the Bible are actually pretty cool,” Jake continued, when the pint glass had left his lips. “I mean, not like Tommy Lee Jones in _Fugitive_ cool, but there’s battles and backstabbing and all this cool stuff I don’t remember coming up before my bar mitzvah.”

It was one of the weirder parts of his cover to get used to. Jacob Chandler had to seem like the kind of guy who might turn to a Church in times of distress, previous life of sin notwithstanding. Which meant he had to have been raised Christian (he was now, incidentally, ‘ _only like one-sixteenth Jewish_ ’). Which meant he had to have at least a _passing_ familiarity with the Good Book (original _and_ sequel).

Rosa said nothing, unless taking a noisy slurp of foam counted as speech. “Like I probably wouldn’t have flubbed all the _haftarah_ stuff if my rabbi had spent more time on Samson being a total badass and pulling fucking buildings down on him. If it was Holt and Terry teaching it, I’d send my kids to Sunday school.”

## *

“I am kinda surprised, Captain,” said Terry, hunching atop a stool, in that bemused-slash-earnest voice of his. “Didn’t really figure you for for the Old Testament type.”

“Yes, well, I could certainly have done without some of the proscriptions of Leviticus,” Holt replied, in what was probably a glib tone of voice for him. “But I am married to a scholar of the written word, and I concur with Richard Dawkins when he describes the Bible as a masterpiece of literature. The cadence of the Lord’s Prayer; Ecclesiastes; the poetry of Psalms.” It hadn’t surprised Jake to learn that Holt’s mother had taken him to Church every Sunday for the first seventeen years of his life. Nor that Holt had been a _very_ studious churchgoer. “Or take the Book of Job, God appearing in a whirlwind: 

_Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place_

_that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?_

_The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment._

_The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken._

Terry scooched back on his stool. “Yeah, I’m sticking to the less scary parts with the girls for now. We just did Noah’s Ark.”

Holt looked as bewildered as was possible for him. “ _Noah’s Ark_? Surely that’s one of the most terrifying episodes in the entire Book! An angry and vengeful God, disgusted with humanity, extinguishing the sinful lot in a wrathful flood.”

Jake’s eyes darted from Holt to Terry, who was looking a little sheepish.

“But there were also two of _every animal_. And the girls _love_ their animals.”

“ _Hrmf_.”

* * *

NYPD PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION UNIT (P.E.U.) OFFICES

QUEENS, NEW YORK

“I mean, I know it’s kind of cliche, but I really _do_ think it all goes back to my Dad,” Jake said, staring up at the ceiling. Stupid shrink’s office didn’t even have a proper couch to lie on, so he was left to improvise. If leaning back in a chair and tilting one’s neck at a ninety-degree angle could be called ‘improvising’.

“I see,” replied Doctor Liu. “And while I encourage you to freely express your thoughts, this session really is just to certify you for a high-stress assignment.”

“Right. Totally. Daddy issues are for me to work out,” Jake said with a forced smile. “Ask away, brain-man.”

“Thank you. Now, is there any element of your current job that you find difficult to cope with? Co-workers who are hard deal with, perhaps, or assignments you particularly dislike?”

“I mean, there the case of my missing dad coming to town and getting me to bail him out of some Quebec drug trafficking charges. _Really_ didn’t like that assignment,” Jake answered.

Liu sighed.

“I don’t even want to say it’s really about my Dad. I mean, _Mom’s_ the reason I really care. What he’s done to her, what he’s _going_ to do to her. If he was just some semen-spouting pilot I’d say ‘ _go ahead, have all the emotionally empty sex you want_ ’. But these aren’t just random women in random airports in random East Coast cities.” Jake bolted upright. “Oh my god. Do you think I have an Oedipus complex? Ah, fuck, that’s gross. And totally wrong. I don’t want any of that. I’m not Oedipal, am I?”

“Jacob, almost the entirety of Freudian psychotherapy has been discredited for decades. There is no neurologically-ingrained Oedipus complex. In fact, even the Oedipus of Greek mythology didn’t have an Oedipal complex: he spend his entire life trying to _avoid_ exactly what Doctor Freud said all men secretly want.”

“Huh. No kidding.” Jake let out a deep breath. “Can’t say I know much about that old Greek stuff. Saw _Hercules_ though. Totally loved it. Not with my _Dad_ , obviously, but…”

Liu sighed.

* * *

“You know that Samson story? ‘Cuz I sure didn’t.’

“ _Yup_.”

“Oh.” Jake fiddled with his bottle. “You know, I have absolutely no idea what you believe in.”

Which was weird, because he actually knew what pretty much everyone else in the squad ‘ _was_ ’, at least nominally. Holt and Terry had both been raised Baptist. The Captain seemed to have drifted away from organized religion shortly after hitting puberty, while Terry had largely stuck with it, in the absolute least-preachy way possible. He and his wife took the girls to church two or three times a month. The Boyle clan were all Episcopalian, though in the same way a fifth-generation Californian would say they’re Irish come Saint Paddy’s Day. Amy had been raised Catholic by parents who clearly weren’t too invested in it, and drifted towards the atheist end of the agnostic spectrum. An organized cosmos didn’t have much room for a meddling God, after all. And Gina was… well...a disorganized mishmash of ever-shifting spiritual beliefs that made modern paganism look like the Russian Orthodox Church in comparison.

Rosa remained the enigma, and that was...

“...Fine with me,” replied Rosa, still not sparing him a sideways glance. “We’ve gone this long without caring, why start now.”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s cool. I don’t really care. Because it’s the twenty-first century. Like, you could be Muslim, and I totally wouldn’t care. Because I’m cool like that.” That got him a vaguely derisive glance. “It’s just that we’re going undercover in what at least pretends to be a church. I want to know if I’m going to say something that’s going to piss you off, Rosa.”

“You won’t.”

“Won’t piss you off or won’t know that I’ve done it?”

Rosa kept her eyes on one of the big-screens tuned to ESPN.

“Okay, I’ll go first. I’m... “ He actually stopped. Whenever the question came up, Jake usually replied with something to the effect of ‘ _Jew-ish, with an emphasis on the_ ish’. Bar mitzvah notwithstanding he was not exactly keeping things kosher. “I’m… agnostic.”

“Should get a refund from your rabbi.”

“That’s not how being Jewish works,” Jake shot back.

“Still don’t care.” Rosa let out a soft sigh. “Jake, I know you’re actually my friend, not just a colleague, but we really need to keep things professional for the next little while. An undercover assignment isn’t some excuse to play the Newlyweds Game.”

“Well, _obviously_ , we’d have lost horribly by now if it was. I know more about Scully and Hitchcock’s sex lives, and how is that remotely fair?”

Rosa kept drinking.

* * *

Jake blinked as Rosa made her way into the break room, briefly wondering if the pad thai from last week might have crossed the blood-brain barrier.

“Rosa?”

“Yeah?” Her head vanished behind the fridge door.

“You’re back early?”

“Am I?”

Jake glanced at his phone. “Didn’t your psych appointment start at 1?”

“Yup.”

“And it’s 1:20 now.”

“Sure.”

“The oral session’s supposed to last at least an hour.”

“Is it?” Rosa stood up, a Tupperware of chicken in her hands, and closed the fridge door. “Fuck takes you guys so long?”

## *

“So, Miss Diaz… may I call you Rosa?”

“...No.”

## *

“Alright. Let’s start with how you’ve been feeling?”

“Fine.”

(...)

“Would you care to elaborate?”

“...Also bored.”

## *

“Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?”

“Nope.”

“Well alright then.”

## *

“He remembered me from last time,” concluded Rosa, sticking the Tupperware in the microwave for a nuking.

“No shit.”

* * *

SANTIAGO RESIDENCE

María Rosa Velásquez Laguado was not _quite_ the polar opposite of Rosa Diaz, but certainly damn-near close. The only thing they had in common was a shared laconicness, albeit for _very_ different reasons.

 _Velásquez_ was from a small town near Buenaventura, Colombia, where she’d spent much of her life. As a teenager she’d moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where her father had promised to get her a job at a family friend’s company, but the job had fallen through. She’d been raped by her father’s friend, told her family back in Colombia, been all-but-disowned by them, and left to fend for herself in a strange land she barely knew. She’d then fallen in with a petty weed smuggler, developed an addiction to something _much_ harder, and earned her keep by keeping her trafficker’s friend’s happy.

“This is so fucking gross,” declared Rosa Diaz, slamming the manilla folder down on Amy’s tastefully-tableclothed table. She wanted to kick her feet up, but she couldn’t bring herself to drop her muddy boots on the white linen Santiago somehow kept immaculate. Not just yet.

“And I thought the skeleton costume was bad,” Amy agreed, with a forced smile. “How’s the accent coach going?”

“Fine,” Rosa replied, noncommittally, well-aware that Amy was trying to distract her. She decided to go along with it. “Usual nitpicks nobody is ever going to notice. When to use _vos_ instead of _tú_ , the right slang words, that kind of crap.” Diaz was raised in Spanish of the South American variety, so it was a fairly easy process.

“It must be nice having a real language tutor, though. I’ve barely _formally_ studied Spanish, and how weird is that? I’d love the extra practise. All I have are my family, the occasional perp, and the woman Jake buys his breakfast burritos from.”

“Yeah.”

It was a fairly important part of her cover. They’d agreed that Rosa Velásquez would speak English only very poorly, and only when directly addressed. She’d fumble for words, get tenses wrong, talk with a heavy accent - all to make her appear more vulnerable to Adamsson. They also hoped that confining her fluency to Spanish would make others talk more freely around her. Diaz had no reason to believe they were wrong, but the transition wasn’t easy. She had no problems being quiet, but this was silence for all the wrong reasons.

“Hey, how about after we finish the review tonight, we hit the town. _Girltime_. Er, _woman_ -time. Let’s get you a snazzy… new… shirt?” Rosa rolled her eyes.

“Went shopping this morning.”

“Oh?” Amy had been too wrapped up in an interrogation to notice.

“With Gina.”

“Oh. Can I ask what for?”

“Clothes for Velásquez.” Rosa kicked her boots off and let her socked feet rest on the table. Amy didn’t even protest, which was something.

“Was it fun?”

Amy _really_ needed to read the nonverbal clues better. “I now own more second-hand miniskirts and strappy heels than I have at every other point in my life.”

“I’m trying to picture that and I just… can’t.”

“Good.”

Amy stared guiltily at the dossier for Rosa’s cover. “Has to go with her prostitute look, doesn’t it?”

Rosa kicked her feet off the table, but only so she could slap it with her hand. “Velásquez isn’t a prostitute, Santiago, she’s a fucking _sex slave_. She’s a homeless heroin addict who sucks dicks so she doesn’t starve. Weak and submissive and _broken_. And _that_ is the person I need to be for however fucking long this takes.”

The words were not coming to Amy’s mouth. Not for a solid minute.

“I… I can still take the assignment. I’ve studied every detail of the case, Unless you don’t think-”

“Don’t say ‘ _unless you don’t think I can handle it_ ’. I’m not falling for that,” sniped Rosa. “I know you could do it. You’re fucking amazing. But Holt was right: I’m the better fit. And besides,” Rosa stared at her own knees, “this isn’t the kind of glamorous assignment that’s going to help your career.”

“ _Rosa_.” Diaz glanced up. “Please… _please_ don’t think you have to take this assignment just because it might stunt my career.”

Rosa snorted. “It’s not about you, Santiago, don’t be so egotistical. Just something to think about.” Rosa rubbed her eyes. A moment later, Amy realized they were... _puffy_.

This time she had the sense to say nothing. To just sit quietly in her dining room, giving Rosa the time and space she needed to collect herself. “Wanna know why I hated shopping with Gina?”

Amy ventured a guess. “ _Because_ … you normally wear boots and pants and a leather jacket so badass I would never be able to pull off?”

That got her a small smirk, at least. “Damn straight,” Rosa said, though her voice was low and quiet. “Let’s just say that sometime between ballet school and the policy academy… things did not always go well for me. A family not thrilled when I brought a girlfriend to Thanksgiving. There were some rough patches, y’know, making ends meet. Took some jobs I’m not exactly proud of.” Amy held her breath, enraptured, as Rosa thumbed the file on her undercover persona. “Not that far from Velásquez. Maybe two or three more fuck-ups.”

“I’m sorry we hit so close to home. Or, y’know, _kind_ of.” Amy had her usual luck stringing words into sentences. “I get if… if you’re mad at us, or the NYPD, or whatever. For kind of making you do this.”

“You’re wrong. Twice.” The words were harsh, but Rosa’s heart clearly wasn’t in it. Amy didn’t let it fluster her. “Nobody’s _making_ me do anything. I don’t give a shit about promotions or bonuses or shiny bits of metal. I’m doing this because Adamsson is a scumbag who deserves to spend the rest of his life rotting in jail. And I’m not mad at you.” She crossed her arms. “I’m mad at fucking Adamsson. For making Velásquez the perfect fucking bait.”

“Just think, though, if you’re the bait… Adamsson is going to ram a hook through his mouth trying to catch you.”

* * *

“Fine, make me guess. Raised Catholic.”

Rosa sipped her beer. “What gave it away.”

“Well I mean not to go The Full Santiago on you but statistically you’re a thirty-ish Hispanic woman I think originally from South America so I’d be pretty surprised if oh you were being sarcastic I get it.”

She flagged the bartender for another drink, pointing to her pint glass as she did. Somehow, Rosa never had difficulty getting served.

“Started having doubts in high school. Started wondering if it was all _really_ Eve’s fault. And how is it fair that you’re just _born_ with sin? And why does the Pope get to live in a giant awesome palace while little Indian kids go starving?”

Jake was actually pretty good at his job, as torturous as it would have been to exact that from any of his co-workers who weren’t named Boyle.

“But you still like it. A little bit. Just the little rituals you grew up with. Maybe every so often you park your bike outside St. Patrick's and light a candle. Not that you really believe any of that stuff, but your family does, and what’s the worst that can happen?” Jake paused, leaning in close enough to smell the leather of Rosa’s jacket. “C’mon, Diaz, am I getting warm?”

She finished the rest of her glass, stood up, and slammed a few bills on the counter for her tab. She didn’t spare him a sideways glance on her way out.

“So is that a storming out because I hit too close to home, or are you just leaving? Rosa? I really can’t tell!”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's chapter two. My apologies for the delay - I actually had this finished days ago, I just didn't have the few hours set aside I needed for proper proofreading. I hope the slightly-irregular narrative didn't throw anyone. And hopefully someone out there enjoys it. Comments & feedback are IMMENSELY appreciated.


	3. Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the last night before their undercover assignment begins, Jake and Rosa spend an evening together.

They’d wanted to do the send-off at Shaw’s, but someone had been circulating a _Washington Post_ article about a group that was surveilling police bars in L.A. and uploading high-resolution photos as some kind of protest. There were no signs of it happening in New York, but it’d spooked everyone, and it seemed stupid to tempt Fate right before going undercover.

So they drank in the bullpen.

It wasn’t a dramatic affair. No banners, no posters, nothing that would have drawn conspicuous attention. There were still too many passers-by whom Holt didn’t trust implicitly, so they kept things circumspect. Just a couple of colleagues enjoying some drinks after work.

They’d started with a round of shots while Holt was still in his office, then moved on a syrupy-sweet ice wine Charles had sprung for. They talked about cases, about local politics, about road closures and vacation plans. The unwound, as they’d done a thousand nights before.

The only oddity of the night came when Captain Holt finally emerged from his office, a bottle of scotch and three neat glasses in his hands. He pulled up a seat next to Jake’s desk, set the glasses down, and poured a finger into each glass. “This is older than both of you combined, so try not to... _guzzle_... it.”

Jake swallowed nervously.

“My fellow officers. I know that every day we face peril and danger in the service of our City. That every days our lives may be cut short by a wayward bullet or a speeding vehicle. That is a level of risk we have all accepted, one inherent to the uniform and the badge and the gun. But every so often we are presented with the opportunity to risk even more. To _knowingly_ take on burden and hardship, above and beyond the call of duty. There may not always be medals or commendations at the end of the road, but those are never what we pursue. Sometimes your only acknowledgement will be the grateful respect of your colleagues.”

Holt raised his tumbler. Rosa and Jake raised for theirs, too, bringing the glasses to their lips in time to meet Holt’s toast. Their fellow detectives of the Nine-Nine followed suit with whatever drink they had in hand.

It was a simple trick, Rosa knew. A special acknowledgement, Holt giving them a private drink, symbolizing them as elites within the precinct. Make them _feel_ special.

It worked, of course.

Holt rose to his feet, shaking Jake’s hand, firmly. Jake leaned in to whisper something, which drew a near-invisible grin from the Captain. The two parted, and Holt found Rosa’s hand, clasping it as firmly as he did any other officer’s.

“Detective Diaz.” He maintained the grip for a few seconds. “I know with complete certainty that you will bring pride and honor to the precinct.”

Rosa blinked. It was a very odd choice of words. Neither her nor the Captain tended to care much for nebulous concepts like ‘ _pride_ ’ and ‘ _honor_ ’. Next thing he’d be asking her to bring glory to the station with her next arrest.

Strangely enough, something warm stirred within her, and it wasn’t the scotch.

“I’ll do you proud, sir,” Rosa stated, as earnestly as Santiago on her best days.

“Godspeed, Detective.”

##  *

“Sorry we couldn’t have the big send-off party you wanted,” said Jake, as he walked exited the precinct via the back alley. Just to be careful.

Rosa shrugged. “Captain made sense.” A stiff drink wasn’t enough to inebriate Rosa Diaz, but Jake thought he could hear her tongue loosening just a little.

“Yeah,” Jake agreed, unenthusiastically. “I guess we should head in. Busy day tomorrow, what with the leaving our old lives behind, and all that.”

Rosa seemed to tense up a little at that. He’d known her long enough not to press, though, giving her a few moments to find the words she wanted. “I don’t want to.”

“‘Scuse me?”

Rosa turned to face him directly. “I don’t want to head in. Not yet.”

“O... _kay_?” Another pause. No surprise that Rosa wasn’t exactly forthcoming. He leaned forward a bit, hunching his shoulders. “Can I ask what you _do_ want to do? Or should I just resort to mind-probing?”

His voice sounded patronizing to his ears, like he was talking to Terry’s daughters or Nikolaj when he was being temperamental. Rosa - to his eternal relief - didn’t seem to take offense, though. “I want to watch the Knicks.”

It took Jake a second to process the earnestness in Rosa’s voice. To realize that she wasn’t fucking around him, pulling his leg. “The Knicks?”

“They’re playing the Raptors tonight.” Rosa was walking again, dragging him down a street of bars and boutiques, like increasingly every street in Brooklyn was. “I want to watch.”

“Okay.” Gears were beginning to click in Jake’s head. This wasn’t Rosa’s usual _live fast and party hard_ persona. He waved his hand at the half-dozen pubs that seemed to be the new Starbucks infestation. “Wanna head in? I’m buying.”

Rosa shook her head and kept walking. “I want to go to the Garden.”

Jake checked his phone. “Tip-off is in, like, twenty minutes. Sure you don’t want to just relax, grab some wings?”

Rosa actually _scowled_ at that, a full-fledged Rosa Diaz _scowl_ that made Jake flinch internally and just a little externally. “I don’t want to _relax_ ,” Rosa practically spat. “I want to get fucking pumped. I want to hear the crowd and the buzzers and that squeaky sounds shoes make on the court.” Jake opened his mouth, but Rosa barreled on, heedless. “I want to eat overpriced food and watch all the stupid games they fill time with, and yell at Willy fucking Hernangómez, and laugh at the cheerleaders like I’m fourteen again. _Okay_?”

There was an edge to that last word, a bit of bitterness. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce why. Rosa was confessing to him, confessing a _vulnerability_. She wanted to watch the Knicks because that was a touchstone for her, a comfort ritual, like marathoning _Die Hard_ in his underwear on Christmas was for Jake.

He understood.

“Forget it,” Rosa growled, staring into his mute form. “I’m going ho-”

Jake caught her arm, and Rosa let herself be stopped.

“Rosa,” he said, seeing the maelstrom of emotions in her eyes. “We’re going.”

And so they went.

Jake suspected he was over the limit, so he paid a stupid amount for a taxi to Manhattan. (They’d have Uber’d, but Jake had a rather problematic history of ‘ _credit issues_ ’, and Rosa had apparently spooked one too many drivers.) He then paid an even stupider amount to a scalper for two tickets, which turned out to be almost courtside, and Rosa looked damn-near giddy when he took her inside.

They arrived only a few minutes late, the Knicks up 10 - 7, and before long Rosa was cheering and hollering and shouting with the fiercest of them. Jake had never been to a game with Rosa before, and he was beginning to understand why. He watched sports to relax. A baseball game on the radio, football on Thanksgiving. Quiet, solitary affairs. Rosa watched for the thrill, for the fight, booing and heckling and drawing nervous glances from everyone in a twenty-seat radius. She yelled at the players. She yelled at the refs. She yelled at him. He loved it.

Jake excused himself after the first quarter to restock on food and beverage. He saw a Knicks jersey, and bought it, too. Because it wasn’t like he’d be spending his own money on anything anytime soon.

Rosa was a kid on Christmas when he handed her the jersey. For a split-second he thought she was actually going to kiss him. She didn’t (of course, that was stupid, why would he even think that?), but she stripped down to her camisole without a moment’s thought and tossed it on.

“How do I look?” Rosa asked, as the Raps were lining up for a free throw. Jake almost choked on his horribly-overpriced beer. He was pretty sure she’d never asked that question in her life.

“ _A total mess_ ,” Jake shouted back, his voice rising and tightening. And it was true. She’d gotten a head start on her cover, having gone three days without showering. Her hair was a tangled mess, matted clumps replacing the usual curly waves. Her makeup was cheap and sloppily applied, bought from a drugstore and applied without a mirror. She was sweaty, tired, and her breath smelled like alcohol.

“You love it,” Rosa teased. Jake figured it was the ethanol and adrenaline talking. He’d seen Rosa get fired up before. She became unpredictable, volatile, _intense_.

‘ _Something like that_ ’, is what Jake thought.

“Don’t be gross,” is what Jake said.

The Raptors won, clawing back victory that had Rosa on her feet for the last five minutes. She swore and she yelled and she loved every minute of it. This was who she was. This made her happy. Even if she’d never in a million years say so.

They milled out of the stadium some time later. Rosa flipped the bird at a gaggle of fans singing an off-key rendition of “O Canada”.

“Um… I know you didn’t have to do this. Tonight,” Rosa began, once they were safely away from the mass of disappointed Knicks fans being disgorged onto 8th Avenue. The Church of the Holy Apostle loomed large overhead. “So… thanks.”

Jake shrugged. “Don’t mention it, Rosa.” He was a fraction the Knicks fanatic she was, but he was never going to complain about taking in a game with a friend. “Seriously, it was… _oh, wow, you’re taking your clothes off_.”

Rosa flashed him another scowl, reassuring in its familiarity. “Here’s your jersey back,” she said, balling up the blue-and-orange garment, arms outstretched. “Thanks for letting me borrow it.”

“You can keep it,” Jake said with a wave. He fumbled over Rosa’s expression. “I mean, I already have my own, at home, so…”

He really had no idea how to continue that sentence.

“You like seeing me wear it.”

Jake tilted his head to the sky, cloudy and moonless, Terry’s Bible lessons flooding his mind. ( _My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_ ) “Yes, Rosa, it looks good on you,” figured pure honesty was his last, best hope.

She snorted. “ _Hah_. Knew you thought I looked hot.”

Jake actually let out a wordless groan as his brain began overheating and melting down. There was literally no response that wasn’t a lie, grossly inappropriate, or liable to get him punched. Or all three at once.

Rosa seemed to take pity on him, though, granting him reprieve from her inquisition. They walked wordlessly for a few more minutes, cutting an erratic path through Chelsea. Walking instead of thinking.

“You heading south?” Rosa finally asked, speaking for the first time in minutes.

“Yeah. Well, going to catch a cab.”

Rosa nodded. “Nice. I’m heading this way.” She pointed indistinctly _north_. “You’re cooler than you look, Peralta.”

He gave a weak laugh and a shallow bow. “Flattery will get you _everywhere_ , Miss Diaz.” He straightened up, giving her another stupid grin. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” confirmed Rosa, the word seeming to deflate her lungs entirely. “Tomorrow.”

##  *

Jake collapsed into an overstuffed armchair as soon as the door was chained shut. Normally he didn’t bother with the chain (he was a cop with a gun, after all), but it was safe to say that his nerves had been running a little ragged these past few days. The armchair was some horrid faux leather thing he’d rescued from the alley behind a bar after a few too many beers and one pleading phone call to Terry. He scooped a blanket off the floor, draped it artlessly over himself, and tried to get comfortable-

- _knock knock knock_

His eyes shot open at the pounding of the door. In his haste to answer it he almost tripped over the blanket, steadying himself against the wall for balance. He didn’t bother checking through the peep-hole.

“Rosa?” The terrible lighting of his apartment’s hallway wasn’t doing her complexion any favors. “Did you forget something?”

Rosa looked momentarily puzzled by this. “It’s six-thirty, Jake,” she stated.

“It is?”

And, sure enough, a few rays of sunlight were peeking through the crooked blinds of his window. What the fuck. He must have passed out - which _did_ explain the terrible taste in his mouth and the growing soreness in his back - though if anything he was somehow even _more_ tired.

“Mind if I put on a cup?” asked Rosa - rhetorically, judging by the sound of her voice - as she brushed past Jake. Jake waited for the other shoe to drop, which it did, several seconds later. “You don’t have a coffee maker?”

“Rosa, there is literally _nothing_ in the history of our relationship that would lead you to think I own a coffee maker,” Jake bit back. (She was, after all, the one in _his_ home). He’d meant it to sound a bit snarkier, but it just came out as _tired_. “There’s some Red Bull in the fridge that you’re welcome to.”

Rosa let out a noise that was dangerously close to a growl, before grabbing a can and snapping it open with a _crack_ - _fizz_. “Fucking frat house in here.”

“Well, sorry, I wasn’t really expecting company. I’d have hung up my new air freshener.” Jake doubled back to his recliner, scooping up the blanket and wrapping it cloak-like around himself. Rosa seemed momentarily chastised, at least for her, staring down at the floor. “Christ you look like shit.”

Very luckily for him, Rosa still didn’t care what he thought of her looks. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“How not-much are we talking here?”

Rosa rolled her neck. “I didn’t. I found another bar, got drunk, wandered around Manhattan, rode the subway for two hours, punched a guy who catcalled me, walked here.”

Jake blinked. “Wow did I pick the wrong night to tuck in early.”

Rosa shrugged. That was probably not a particularly eventful night by her standards. “Couldn’t sleep. I mean, I’m tired as hell, but it’s just... “ she scowled “... _nerves_.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. I haven’t pooped in five days.”

“You should probably get that checked.”

“Probably.”

Awkward silence. Jake groped blindly behind the recliner, finding a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew. He was desperate enough to drink it straight from the bottle, right in front of Rosa.

“I did what you said, too.”

Jake lowered the bottle gracelessly from his lips. “Huh?”

“The Church thing. Found one that was open. Lit a dumb candle. Bowed my head like a good little girl.”

“Please know that I wasn’t actually _suggesting_ you go pray, Rosa.” Which would have been one of the more hypocritical things he could’ve done in his life. Rosa’s faint nodding suggested she understood that.

The silence stretched on. “You pray for anything?”

Rosa shrugged. “Kind of. That we nail Adamsson. That we find Beaubruna and all the other missing women. That we find all his scummy friends and bag ‘em, too.” She sipped her Red Bull. “And, y’know, everyone else. That my sis and my niece stay safe. Happiness for the Nine-Nine. That you don’t get hurt on this assignment.”

“You prayed for me?” The revelation literally dropped Jake’s jaw.

“I kind of forgot how. Mostly Spanish stuff.”

“I think it’s understood regardless,” said Jake, because he knew he was _such_ a theologian.

Rosa carried on. “That, y’know, you don’t get hurt or killed or whatever while you’re my partner. That I can keep you safe.”

“Wow, Rosa, that was so incredibly sweet I don’t even care about the mildly condescending implications of that last bit.” Rosa didn’t laugh, but the snort she exhaled was mirthful, and the corners of her mouth tugged upwards. Something in Jake’s brain clicked a second later. “Nothing for yourself, though? No, ‘ _Jesus, have my back_ ’?”

And one again, Jake pointed out what he realized _before_ he considered if that was a wise decision. The ghost of Rosa’s smile vanished, like a phantom at dawn. “Waste of time. Nothing up _there_ is going to keep me safe.”

“Hey, it certainly can’t hurt,” Jake reminded her, leaning forward slightly. “No atheists in hen houses, like they say.”

“That’s atheists _in foxholes_.”

“I don’t see what foxes have to do with any of this.”

Rosa sighed. “Why am I in this fucking foxhole,” she muttered, mostly to herself. Then she glanced at Jake. “We don’t need this flunky bullshit. We’re supercops. Why should we be scared.”

“Because we’re trying to infiltrate a drug-and-sex-trafficking cult run by hardened criminals.” Jake got to his feet, forcing Rosa to look at him. “It’s okay to be nervous, Rosa.” He reached out, tentatively, before letting one hand rest on the padded shoulder of her leather jacket. She tensed. “You’re still Rosa Diaz, right, the no-touching rule still applies.”

“No. 

_Beat_. “Huh?”

“I’m not Rosa Diaz, I’m Rosa Velásquez. You can touch all you want.”

“Rosa, I’m sorry, I meant-”

“No.” She shook her head. “Sit down beside me and put your arm around me.”

_Wow_ was that hard to do.

Jake slid awkwardly onto the couch cushion next Rosa, wiped his sweaty palms on his dirty jeans, then _carefully_ draped an arm around her shoulders.

“What are you, a fucking teenager at Comic Con?”

“You know I touched Lucy Lawless at Comic Con once? Only cost me $135 and wow that sounds weird saying it out loud now.”

Rosa practically slammed herself backwards, trapping Jake’s arm behind her. “I know every little detail about ‘ _Jacob Chandler’s_ ’ life. I know he was homeschooled, when he got his GED, why he washed out of the Coast Guard. Why he hates Seattle and who his friends in B.C. are and why he doesn’t sample his own product.” Amy had compiled the binders on their respective undercover personas _personally_ , and Rosa could go fucking toe-to-toe with her on their contents.

“You can see my binder currently being used as a doorstop over _there_ ,” Jake said, pointing to something on the other end of the room. Rosa glared at him. “ _Kidding_. Well, kind of. That really is the binder. But I just put it there. I really did study it.”

“So you know that you’ve been fucking me for the past six months while you weaned me off my heroin habit. How you passed me around to your friends to make rent.”

Jake grimaced. Distasteful as it was (and it was _extremely_ distasteful), it was an important part of their cover. It made Rosa seem a lot more pliable to Adamsson, if he was looking for new recruits for his _congregation_. Someone who was already ‘broken in’, damaged goods. Submissive. He’d see her as an easy catch. He’d get greedy. He’d get _stupid_.

“So you can’t be fucking tense around me. The fuck’s Adamsson going to think if you flinch before touching me?”

Jake brainstormed several witty responses, but they all died in his throat. It was a perfectly valid point. Under normal circumstances they’d have been given extensive training together, the police academy equivalent of play-acting and improv lessons. The newlyweds game. They hadn’t been able to find time before the next window of opportunity for Glenn to ‘introduce’ them.. Nobody seemed too concerned - they’d known each other for over a decade, surely they could follow each other’s leads?

Rosa was proving that that was easier said than done.

“For the record, Jacob Chandler is not very big on public displays of affection,” Jake reminded her. “His mother wasn’t very affectionate, and that’s transferred to all his relationships since.” Rosa ignored him. “Right. Sorry. I promise I’ll bring my A-game.”

“Then give me a kiss.”

Jake made a sound like he’d been punched in the windpipe. “ _Hrk_.”

Her glare deepened. “I’m not fucking around. We’re a couple. A pretty fucked-up couple, but that’s life. I’m not going to have Adamsson get weirded out because you act like we’re just co-workers.”

“Right. I’ll just kiss you… _somewhere_?”

Rosa actually looked slightly subdued by his response. “Would it help…” her voice seemed to crack a little, before softening to silk. “ _Sir? Please… do whatever you want, sir._ ” Rosa’s voice had snapped back to Velasquez’s, soft and submissive and heavily-accented.

“ _Ooooh_ fuck that’s even weirder than the girly-voice.” But Rosa didn’t growl, or snarl, or hiss, or do any other Rosa Diaz-esque things. She just peered up at him with impossibly-large brown eyes, hesitantly, expectantly.

Jake kissed her, on the lips. He closed his eyes. Rosa was kissing back, but letting him take the lead, putting up no resistance. She guided his hands to her sides, and he held her, slipping almost unthinkingly under the hem of her shirt.

“Stay with me, Peralta.” That was Detective Diaz, speaking, separating her lips from his long enough to draw air. “Don’t hyperventilate.”

In another context, her words would have been teasing, a barb reminding him that he was not so different from the mouth-breathing Jake Peralta who got rejected at his own bar mitzvah. But they weren’t. They were spoken from one detective to another. Guidance.

“Now… g….grab my ass.”

“ _Rosa_ …”

“You’re a terminal douchebag whose sole legitimate job was working as “security” at a strip club in Tacoma. You’d trade me to Adamsson for a quick score. You watched me bang your old roommates through a hidden camera. And not for my safety. And you have an erection.”

“That last part wasn’t in the binder.”

“First rule of improv, Jake: _always_ go with it. Touch my butt.”

And he did. Two handfuls of ass that felt impossible firm through the thin leather pants covering them. His hands stayed there for a few more seconds, kissing all the while, before Rosa detached.

“Who’d have thought that making out with my incredibly gorgeous partner would be the hardest part of this assignment?” It was a joke, but a fairly weak one.

Someone less secure than Rosa might have wondered if Jake didn’t like making out with her because she wasn’t pretty. Rosa was _far_ too self-confident to fall for that. But Jake’s hesitancy wasn’t faked, there was no denying that.

“Spit it out.”

“Look, Rosa… you… like _you_ , Rosa Diaz, not whatever we’re saying we are… don’t want me to grab your butt. I don’t think you’ve flirted with me once since the Academy.”

“You’re not a bad kisser.”

“Thanks.” Jake raised a hand to the ceiling. “But you’re putting yourself in a kind of fucked-up space, Rosa. I know it’s for a job, for a good reason, but… _fuck_ , I don’t want to know how you fought the urge to punch me in the gut that whole time.”

“Sublimation.” Jake blinked. “I’m not Rosa Diaz. We’ve been over this.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Jake almost let out a snarl of frustration. Rosa usually just left boring conversations before she got a chance to be _stubborn_.

“This is the worst cover story we’ve ever had. I have to be some scummy, abusive pimp and do creepy things to you. And you have to be this helpless, drug-addicted prostitute. I’m really not sure which is worse.”

“Mine is. Mine is _definitely_ worse.”

“Not that I’m disagreeing, but I _do_ think you’re underestimating how fucked up I feel acting like a pimp. It’s _way_ less fun than 80s MTV made it out to be.”

Rosa nodded, but then she was shedding her jacket, holding out her left forearm for Jake to inspect. “Added a finishing touch to my cover.”

“What, you get a trashy tattoo or _Christ_ Rosa what happened to your arm?”

“Puncture marks. Befitting the habit.”

Jake leaned a little closer and confirmed that, _yup_ , those were really puncture holes, not just stylish tattoos. “How’d you even do that? You _hate_ needles.”

* * *

IRT LENNOX AVENUE LINE

4:51 AM

She set down the flask on the empty seat beside her, the taste of cheap whiskey still on her lips. It was terrible, but it was _strong_ and that’s what she needed right now. The syringe, freshly-stripped from its packaging, was clutched in a white-knuckled grip. Her forearm was outstretched before her.

“Do it Rosa. Do it Rosa. Do it do it do it do it-”

She hyperventilated, let out a primal scream, and plunged the needle into her skin with a carelessness that would have made every medic from Staten Island to Westchester wince.

As soon as she could breathe normally again, Rosa glanced down at her arm, and the several small holes which were now oozing blood onto what was already a suspiciously blood-stained floor.

She let out a brief shudder, took another deep swig from her flask, and wiped as much of the blood off as she could with her jacket.

* * *

“Wow that story is equal parts impossibly cool _and_ incredibly terrifying. Not to mention grossly unsanitary.”

“You told me you haven’t washed your sheets once since moving in.”

“A decision I completely stand by.” He let out a weak laugh. “We need better boundaries, though. If we’re going to go all-in on this horrible relationship.”

Rosa didn’t say anything, but she nodded slightly, which he took as approval to go forward. “Okay, we already have our standard glossary of undercover _lin-go_ , so that still covers the basics. For the love of God Rosa please don’t hesitate to use them.”

The ‘standard glossary’ consisted on a small set of words which were unlikely to come up in regular conversation, but not so rare as to draw attention with their use. Words to indicate that they’d been compromised, endangered, or were preparing to make an arrest. Standard stuff. Jake’s codewords were mostly related to foods he strongly disliked, while Rosa’s were primarily Spanish phrases containing loanwords that Jake would be sure to understand.

“But we need something for the physical stuff, too.”

Rosa nodded. “Okay. Let’s assume for starters that I’m cool with anything you want to do. Hug, kiss, grab.” In another context that might have been flirty, inviting, _tempting_. In the setting of this assignment, though, it wasn’t arousing in the slightest.

“Right. This is definitely weird, but… okay. Now let’s set some non-verbal safewords. If they’re good enough for kinky bedroom sex, they’re good enough for the job.”

Rosa perked up, ever-so-slightly. “My safeword’s always been the colors in Spanish - _rojo_ and _amarillo_ ,” she explained, with a teasing dart of her eyes. The one that told Jake that he would never, _ever_ know the story.

“My safeword is _ow_ ,” Jake countered, drawing a small grin from his partner. “Though seriously, we can use your red-yellow system. Describe something as yellow and I’ll back down, red and I’ll stop any touch-y stuff completely.”

The nods from Rosa was clear, now, definitively affirmative. “And if we can be more discrete, _tickling_ you equals _yellow_ , _pinching_ means _red_.”

Jake’s eyebrows raised. “Seriously, if I have to testify in court that Rosa Diaz tickled me on assignment I can die a happy man. Right before I get charged with contempt of court.” His smile faded a second later. “Though, obviously, I mean, _no_ , that would be horrible, because it means we crossed a line somewhere.”

Rosa punched him in the shoulder. Hard. “We’ve got this, Jake. I’m ready.”

Jake rubbed his shoulder, trying very much not to let out an _ow_. “You sure?”

Rosa nodded. “One-thousand push-ups.”

Jake stood up straight, the pain in his arm forgotten. He stared into Rosa’s eyes. They were ringed with fatigue, reddened from rubbing, but there was a fire in them, the kind of thing he associated with The Bride in _Kill Bill_ , except so much more powerful in real life. A determination that would make John McClane shit his pants.

“Then let’s nail the bastard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just.... don't hold your breath for the next update, k?


End file.
